This Lloyd Wright–Inspired Home Had Termites So Bad It Was Being Advertised as a $170K Lot

In 1989, Hope and Terence Alcorn were looking for a new home. They had sold their house in Buffalo, New York, and had spent Terence’s birthday house hunting in Pittsburgh. As they were leaving a brick, colonial-style house from the early 1900s, their realtor asked them what they thought. "It’s not really our style," they replied, explaining that they had been living in a Frank Lloyd Wright, the Gardener’s Cottage, and liked contemporary, organic architecture. The realtor told them: "Meet me again at five. I have a house to show you."

The property, it turned out, was the Abraam Steinberg House, designed by Peter Berndtson and Cornelia Brierly, former apprentices of Lloyd Wright who had worked on Fallingwater. Cut from brick, concrete, and redwood, the rust-colored house had a linear, geometric façade, and was surrounded by trees. Like Fallingwater, it had strong horizontal lines, cantilevered sections of roof, high-level clerestory windows, and almost all of its furniture built-in. Named after the doctor who had commissioned it and built between 1949 and 1951, it was now being advertised for $170,000 as an empty lot: it had a termite infestation, and it was assumed that a buyer would demolish it.

"We saw it, put in an offer and moved in the next week, because the bank insisted that the house had to be free and clear of termites before they would give us a mortgage," says Hope. Unusually, the owners gave the Alcorns prepossession of the house so that they could treat the termites and obtain a mortgage, which would allow them to fund the more extensive restoration work needed. The fact that Terence was an architect gave them the confidence to take the project on. "We fell in love with the house and were very excited to think that we would be able to live here," Hope says.